Hewlett-Packard’s (HP) human resources team wanted to foster a culture of self-service among its 300,000-plus employees and managers, but there was a problem. Actually, there were a few problems.

The global technology giant had a dated and highly customized legacy human capital management (HCM) platform that was so unwieldy, some critical human resource processes were actually handled offline because it was simply easier that way.

What’s more, because HP operated in 106 countries, its HR department was forced to juggle a multitude of regional laws and customs. Since HP’s HCM services were not configured to support regional needs, many employees and managers maintained shadow systems. The cumulative result was poor data integrity and rampant management issues.

A new, cloud-based HCM system provided by software vendor Workday, Inc., offered what HP was seeking to support the re-engineering of its business processes. “It would allow HP to standardize global processes, configure services for regional needs, enable accurate reporting, deliver an intuitive end-user experience, and enable HP to proactively analyze and manage talent,” says Brian Borzone, Human Capital principal, Deloitte US. “It also would be more efficient. There was one 45-minute legacy HR transaction that was re-engineered with Workday’s system to take only 90 seconds to—completeand HP completes that task 50,000 times a year.”

Workday’s HCM system would pay for itself over the long term, but HP knew the implementation would be tremendously complex. Scott Spradley, HP’s Chief Information Officer and Vice President of Global Functions, knew he needed additional support. So, he turned to a longtime service provider. “Deloitte has significant Workday experience, as well as best-practice methodologies for organizational transformation, HR service delivery, and reporting and analytics,” Spradley says. “The trust I have in Deloitte gave me the confidence to take on our toughest transformation challenge to date.”

“We excel at delivering the Workday-enabled solutions our clients need, when and how they need it,” Borzone says. “We don’t subscribe to a ‘one-size-fits-all’ model, which I think is a big reason Deloitte is recognized globally as a leader in Workday HR and Finance consulting services.”

Teamwork tames the beast

HP leadership set an aggressive 15-month timeline for the implementation, which ultimately would be the largest Workday cloud HCM deployment ever to date.

The HP and Deloitte transformation team facilitated regional configuration sessions with key HP staff, including HR administrators and members of the HP Global Shared Services group. Through these sessions, HP realized immediate operational efficiencies. “We didn’t just build a thoughtful prototype. We also transferred knowledge to a significant number of employees who would later be responsible for supporting the platform post-deployment,” Spradley explains.

Working collaboratively, HP and Deloitte achieved key project goals on schedule, optimizing HP’s ability to manage and retain talent, enable effective decision making, and give significant time back to the HP workforce. A worldwide, big-bang release was more of a whimper, at least in terms of problems. HP actually scaled back its beefed-up call center staffing after just two days. “This was the first confirmation that we had done things incredibly right,” Spradley says.

HP employees immediately embraced the new platform, which soon began delivering its promised benefits. Since the 2014 launch, HP has begun decommissioning more than 100 systems and 300 reports; reduced HR service desk call volume from 1,050 tickets per day to 43; standardized 86 manager and employee processes in 106 countries; and experienced an increase in user satisfaction rates from 60 percent to 85 percent.

“Throughout my career, I have managed seven or eight massive enterprise implementations. The HP Workday platform is far and away the best I’ve ever been a part of. In fact, it’s the best I’ve ever seen,” Spradley says. “We executed the world’s fastest, biggest, and most complex Workday implementation—and we did it in 15 months. It would not have been possible without Deloitte.”

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For the second consecutive year, Deloitte US was named HP PartnerOne Global Partner of the Year in recognition of Information Management (analytics), SAP (HANA), Cyber Risk Services, and Information Technology Transformation (Cloud).

Deloitte refers to one or more of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited, a UK private company limited by guarantee (“DTTL”), its network of member firms, and their related entities. DTTL and each of its member firms are legally separate and independent entities. DTTL (also referred to as “Deloitte Global”) does not provide services to clients. Please see About Deloitteto learn more about our global network of member firms.